Katy Perry Told Us All About Her New Perfume and Beauty Evolution

She gave us something good to celebrate.

If you want to make it like your birthday every day, then Katy Perry — highest paid female star on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list and source of neverending beauty inspiration — has you covered. We're referring to her just-released fragrance, Mad Potion, which smells deliciously of frosting, florals, and musk.

"I've always wanted to do my take on vanillas, because they're aphrodisiacs and I've been wearing them since I was literally 13," she tells Teen Vogue. "I love the gourmand type of fragrances, and I love anything that makes you kind of edible to a person." While the scent (classified as an "oriental musk") is undoubtedly aimed at those who love a good dose of sweetness in their perfumes, it also features a warm, dry base to help balance it out — or, as Katy puts it, to "flip a very feminine scent on its head."

We have to talk about the bottle too, which clearly takes its cues from the fragrance itself. "I'm such a sucker for a theme, probably because I was never allowed to dress up for Halloween my whole life, and now everything's a theme," she confesses. The result is a sparkling, smoky flacon that looks as if it were brewed in a kitschy apothecary.

Mad Potion's packaging definitely channels Katy's sartorial vibe of today, but we were also curious to hear about her evolution over time. The lesson learned: even the most fervent beauty worshippers have made plenty of mistakes! "I've seen a lot of wrong skin color foundations in the past, just not matching my skin color," she recounts. Additional advice she would give her teenage self includes a reminder to "stop picking at my face," and more importantly, to always wash her face. "When you're young, you think you can just sleep in that stuff, and you really can't," she cautions (we're in total agreement on that one).

As for the women who inspire her beauty game today? "They are so vast," she says. "It's Lolita, to Frida Kahlo, to Chloë Sevigny, to Daphne Guinness. Those are probably my four that I really love — and Tavi Gevinson, and girls on Tumblr."

Girls on Tumblr might be interested to know that Katy, for all her well-documented makeup and hair experimentation, doesn't mind a minimal moment either. "RiRi I love so much," she says of fellow songstress, friend, and scent inventor Rihanna. "She's just effortlessly cool! Every time she's walking from her car to whatever place, it's like she's not trying, and it works. She's got the aesthetic so right."

Grab Mad Potion now for $30 on the Twitter pop-up shop, and share your favorite Katy Perry beauty moment with us while you're there!